Woman Gets Wildlife Rehab License So She Can Hand Raise an Orphaned Possum in Her Home

When a tiny orphaned possum named Peppercorn came into wedding photographer Jessica Marie‘s life through her brother, she took it upon herself to hand raise the little marsupial. Unfortunately, the laws in North Carolina require that she have a wildlife rehabilitation license to raise possums in captivity. So she placed Peppercorn with a local wildlife rehab while she got her license.

In the state that I live in, it’s actually illegal to keep possums in captivity, so I had to hand him over to a wildlife refuge in my area and in order to care for peppercorn the steps I had to take was to get my wildlife rehab license which took about a 3 week period.

Since then, Jessica has been devoting her time to raising Peppercorn to be healthy and strong so that he can be released back into the wild one day.

We have talked about releasing him in the spring when it’s nice and warm, in a place that is not close to any main roads, because we live too close to a road. It’s definitely going to be emotional but I know it’s the right thing and I know that he’s going to love it.